On May 31st, 2012 the Maxwell family boarded a plane and moved to Swaziland to live at Project Canaan. I hope to update my blog on Saturday mornings and share, as honestly as I can, the highs and lows of our life in Africa. We are living on a farm in a remote part of this tiny Kingdom and are serving the community as well as the orphans and vulnerable children of the nation. The 365 day count down started on June 1st, 2011, but the real journey begins now. Thanks for joining us.

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Saturday, January 14, 2017

Who knew? God knew.

In 2008 we were leading a team of volunteers in Swaziland from
the US and welcomed a family from Charlevoix, Michigan.I remember them will for a variety of
reasons. First, the father was a dentist and was going to work with Dr. Mark
McGee doing dental work for the whole week. The second reason was that her
brother (a strong, fit young man) fainted out in a homestead visit while we all
stood and held hands to pray. He was dehydrated and anyone who has traveled
with us since then has heard us tell how important it is to drink a lot of
water because he this young man could get dehydrated, anyone could.(As an aside, he chipped his tooth when
he fell and his dentist father had to glue the tooth back together back at the
hotel. Great to have a dentist as your father).

The third reason that I remembered them was that almost all
of their luggage was lost, and the 14-year-old girl (Jane) had none of her own
clothes to wear.Most girls that
age would be very upset, but Jane just went with it and even had to borrow
clothes from her older brother all week without a single complaint.Her luggage never did arrive and since
that trip the whole family only travels with carry-on luggage!

Today I saw that young girl, Jane, again. She is now
23-years-old.In fact, Jane has
been with us for the past month here in Swaziland.She and Spencer have been dating for the past few years and
have now graduated from University.Both plan to go on to graduate school and decided to take the next two
months to go on a trip of a lifetime (as if Africa wasn’t enough!).

Today we put them on a shuttle to Johannesburg where they
will take an 8-hour flight to Abu Dhabi.Then they will take another 8-hour flight to Vietnam.They will backpack through Vietnam for
23 days and the move on to Thailand for 20 days, finishing up their adventure
in Indonesia for 17 days.

We are so incredibly proud of both of them and their desire
to stretch themselves, learn about the world, and learn about each other as
they look towards and unknown future in a world where nothing is certain.

What they both do know for sure is that God brought them
together when they were 13/14-years old and God has a plan for their lives. As
we said goodbye to them, Ian prayed over them for protection, peace and
joy.We look forward to following
their adventures over the next months, and there is a part of us that envies
the carefree time that they have to explore the world.

So, what is the moral of this story? You just never know who
you are going to meet on an 11-day service trip with Heart for Africa!

Live from Swaziland … our nest is empty again (except for
the other 148).